Which
Religion Is Good?

Doubt Everything Find Your Own Light.

By
Ali Sina

A
few months ago, in my community center I picked up a newspaper and read
about a new Messiah called John de Ruiter, the hot shot guru from Canada
whom some of his followers reckon to be "bigger than Jesus". The
article was an interview with Joyce, his wife of 18 years, and the mother
of his three children. She was rejecting the claim of her husband to be
God (A man worshiped as God may shock a Muslim but not a Christian who
accepts the concept of trinity and Jesus as walking God among men).

After
many years of forbearance Joyce De Ruiter could not bear it any longer and
one day she stood in front of his congregation and complained about her
husband's sexual affairs with two of his young and beautiful followers.
These two girls are sisters and their parents who are also the followers
of John de Ruiter, are ecstatic to know that God makes love to their
daughters. The funny thing is that the followers of this new messiah know
about the sexual interludes of their master but few give a second thought
about it. Once people accept someone as a superior being, a messiah or a
messenger of God they become blind to all his flaws and commend even his
sins. No Muslim today, e.g. would approve promiscuity. Womanizing and
lustfulness is considered immorality. Yet the same Muslims accept with no
difficulty Muhammad's promiscuous relationships
with a score of women: some his wives, some his maids, some his shares of
the booties from the spoils of his wars and some who just offered
themselves to him.

De
Ruiter Told his congregation that "Truth has told him" to sleep
with these girls. How many of his brainwashed followers asked whether
"Truth" has a mouth to speak? When someone surrenders his
intelligence to someone else, he becomes a zombie who will believe
anything. Truth is a concept not a person or a being. How can a concept
talk or communicate?

The true answer to 2+2 is 4. Any other answer is false. Can I say that 4
told me this or that? How ridiculous is this claim?

De
Ruiter denies these relationships are actual affairs, because he claims to
be bonded to these women in a spiritual realm (Apparently Mr. De Ruiter's
spiritual realm is in his bed). "To me it's not infidelity”, says
the self-proclaimed savior of Mankind “It's not unfaithfulness because
my heart is still completely with Joyce." Moreover being a god his
fornication with these two beautiful well-trimmed young sisters is not for
lust but it is the expression of his profound love for others and that his
threesomes with them has "spiritual significance", explains in a
most relaxed and holy manner the "Guru of Gurus".

He originally denied his adulterous relationship and when it came to the
light, he brazenly rationalized it. De Ruiter says he originally denied
the relationships because he was answering questions on a "personal
level." And on this personal level, he is not having affairs, because
the relationships are not about lust or sex or physical attraction,"
And added: "I'm not a sexual wanderer, emotionally. I don't
live with lust. I don't struggle with that. It's not a weakness."

"While
extramarital affairs are in many ways the private business of the parties
involved, in this case they indicate a willingness within de Ruiter's
group to accept behaviour that violates cultural norms, says a local
academic.

Sociologist
Steve Kent worries the lack of controversy within the group over the
adultery is indicative of the charismatic sway de Ruiter has with
followers."

Among
his followers there is a well established psychologist who claims that
after 30 years of practice he has no doubt of John’s mental health and
that he is who he claims to be.

Yesterday
in my neighborhood market, I saw his flyer pinned to the billboard. It was
an invitation to his conferences with these words:

“John
de Ruiter: Master of transformation; living embodiment and teacher of
Truth.
“

And;

“Through
the living essence of Truth emanating from his words and from his
presence, John de Ruiter awakens what our hearts most long for…”

These
self-acclaimed prophets, messengers and messiahs rehash ideas that are
either commonsense and people already know and accept or state empty
phrases that at first seem to have a profound meaning. For example De
Ruiter says, “Truth is knowable without restriction, however only
honesty through openness and softness of heart reveals it”. This is
absurd. Truth is the state of being factual. It has nothing to do with
openness and softness of heart; it has everything to do with doubting,
with rational thinking and facts. Yet despite the frivolity and banality
of his teachings there is no want of idiots who would follow him blindly
calling him the “master of transformation”, Impressed by such
deceiving yet shallow phrases such as above.

For
those who cannot see a mentally disturbed man behind those blue eyes of
John de Ruiter a quick review of his writings reveal the confusion and
incoherence of his thoughts. Words are jumbled in tautological statements
and hollow speeches that leave the listener gasping for meaning while the
redundancy of vibrant words such as "Truth" and
"consciousness" subliminally suggests that something very
profound is being said that its full meaning eludes the ken of the
listener. But after reading a few of his speeches, after getting over his
monotonous catchphrases and mulling over
their contents one learns that there is nothing to be learned from them.

The
curt and affirmative phrases of John the Ruiter have an uncanny
resemblance to the assertive verses of Quran, and perhaps those who think
Quran is a miracle; will find De Ruiter's senseless and void writings much
to their liking.

I
looked at the picture of one of De Ruiter's conferences and saw the
attendees were well-dressed middle-class people most of them supposedly
with university degrees. I asked myself what is it that these people see
in this confused and disturbed man? Why so many educated and
"apparently smart" people are so eager to surrender their
intelligence to charlatans like John de Ruiter and other impostors like
him?

It
seems that people are looking for the Truth and guidance in all the wrong
places. We somehow believe that there is someone who can tell us what to
do and what route to take sparing us from making responsible decisions on
our own. We feed the multi million-dollar psychic network industry in the
search of response and finance multi billion-dollar religious industry in
the hope of salvation. We look for magic bullets; we believe in fairies,
angels and ghosts. We follow gurus and prophets because we are not willing
to take the responsibility of our lives in our own hands, think with our
own brains and live conscientiously.

When
there are people who want to be followers, there will come those who will
claim to be leaders. When people think like sheep, there will be wolves
that pose as shepherds. When we are willing to give a free ride, there
will come those who will take us for a ride.

But
the real religion starts taking form when these self-proclaimed prophets
and gurus die. Then their devotees fabricate myths and legends, attribute
miracles to them and portray them as gods and demigods. This is how Jesus
was born from a virgin, how he multiplied the bread, how he walked on the
waters, how he resurrected the dead and how he himself raised from the
death. And this is how thousands of hadithes were created narrating that
Muhammad produced waters from between his fingers, multiplied the food to
feed an army, spat in a dry well and it gushed with water, split the moon
with his sword or when he went to relieve himself the stones moved around
to hide his naked butts.

These
fables pass from one generation to another and eventually the passage of
time seals their credibility until everyone believes in them considering
their antiquity and their universal acceptance the proof of their
truthfulness and the veracity of the claims of their prophets.

But
can anyone really tell us how to find the truth? Is there any religion
that can lead us to salvation?

Obviously,
the truth is one and it is absolute. It is unchanging, eternal and
infinite. If you believe in God, irrespective of your idea of it, you
believe that God is the Absolute Truth. The question is whether humans
with their limited intellect can grasp the Absolute Truth? Can the finite
contain the infinite? Can a cup hold an ocean?

If I am aware of my limited capacity of understanding, I am aware of my
ignorance. I know that I don’t know. The truth may be one and infinite
but can I grasp it? The answer is no! Yet that does not mean that I should
stop searching. In order to understand, I have to ask, I have to be open
and non-judgmental, but also I have to realize that I will never find the
entire truth.

To
reach this level of openness, one has to realize that his thoughts and
beliefs are ) largely influenced by his education and environment. In other
words, our present beliefs are the result of our past learning. Since
every day we learn more, our understanding of the Truth also expands and
therefore differs. Heraclitus once said, "you cannot cross the same
river twice", because the next time those waters are not the same and
you too have changed. As we change our beliefs change too. This happens
gradually and subconsciously, even if we consciously resist the change.
During the course of our lives we constantly change and with that our
views of reality change simultaneously.

Once I know that the change is the constant. I don’t have to hold to my
beliefs with tooth and nail. I know they are bound to change. I become
detached. I will not try to impose them on others nor will I try to preach
to others. I will not try to lead people to the right path as I realize
that truth is pathless. Truth is not something that you can reach or
grasp. Truth is not a destination. No one can lead you to it because it is
not a place. No one can show it to you because it is not a thing.

The process of discovering the truth is not unlike the experiments done by
scientists to understand how things work; it starts by making theories,
but accepting to discard them once those theories are proven wrong. This
is the scientific approach.

Galileo
doubted the commonly accepted notion of the geocentric universe. He found
that the truth was much different from what was universally believed. Many
learned men of his time simply accepted the conventional belief. We
remember him and have forgotten them. Darwin is another example. Although
a very religious man, he questioned and doubted the biblical story of
creation and thus found out the mystery of evolution. All discoveries are
made after doubting and questioning the validity of the commonly accepted
and the time honored beliefs.

Spiritual realities are not dissimilar with scientific ones and the same
process of doubting and questioning should be used to unravel the hidden
mysteries of the spiritual domain. We have to doubt everything, including
our own beliefs. When we doubt, we question, we learn and we change our
mind. Although we will never learn the truth, we can get closer to it.
Truth cannot be contained, not in a mind and definitely not in a book. If
the knowledge of God is infinite how can an infinite knowledge be
contained in few pages of a book?

Once
we learn something new, we don’t discard our previous beliefs but our
understanding of it changes. I do not discard the Divine reality. Just
like Galileo who did not reject the Earth but people’s understanding of
it, I do not reject God but people’s understanding of it. For example,
the whole notion of a personal God that does not care about us for billions
years of evolution and then suddenly, when we have evolved and become
humans with a little bit of intelligence, appears in our lives, hiding
behind the clouds of secrecy, telling us irrational stories through less
than educated men whom he sends as messengers, demanding us to worship him
or roast us for eternity in his cosmic rotisserie, does not make sense.
The stories in Quran (and the Bible) are absurd. The pathetic efforts of
the apologists to explain and justify them are ridiculous. The teachings
of these religions are no more applicable. They seem barbaric and
outdated. Their definition of God, the next world, and the purpose of
creation seem so primitive. Many of their social teachings are harsh and
inhumane. Once religions are tested with rational thinking they fail; I am
not saying that the truth is somewhere else or that I have found it! Only
an impostor or a fool could make such claim. The truth cannot be found in
a doctrine or religion. That realization is liberating.

It is time that we stopped looking at other people for guidance. As long
as people are willing to be fooled, there will come those who fool them.
As long as they want to be followers, there won't be shortage of
charlatans who will mislead them.

Doubt
everything that you are told and believe. When you doubt you empty the
glass of your mind and become receptive to new knowledge, but don’t hold
fast to that knowledge either. Be open and let yet fresher insights breath
new life into your mind. Religions demand absolute and blind faith. They
claim to be the ultimate truth. If you think the faith is superior to
doubt, you don’t doubt. When you don’t doubt, you don’t search and
when you don’t search you don’t find.

I
believe Krishnamurti’s explanation of the Truth is the best. "The
core of Krishnamurti's teaching is contained in the statement he made in
1929 when he said:

'Truth
is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any organization,
through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any
philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it
through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the
contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual
analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a
fence of security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as
symbols, ideas, and beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's
thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the
causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of
life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The
content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is
common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and
superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The
uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom
from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So
he is not an individual."

Last
Words

Dear
friend, if you look for meaning in life, don’t look for it in religions;
don’t go from one cult to another or from one guru to the next. You can
spend all your life or look for eternity and will find nothing but
disappointment and disillusionment. Look instead in service to humanity.
You will find “meaning” in your love for other human beings. You can
experience God when you help someone who needs your help. The only truth
that counts is the love that we have for each other. This is absolute and
real. The rest is mirage, fancies of human imagination and fallacies of
our own making.

I
received this email from a follower of John De Ruiter. I share it with you
in the hope that it may force us to question our own belief system and
make us think

Dear
Ali

Perhaps
you did not know, but it is common knowledge that Krishnamurti slept with
his followers as well. Is it possible that sexual expression takes on a
different meaning to one who has let go of attachments and needs? When you
find Truth in yourself, all kinds of desires and needs no longer hold sway
over you, but they simply become a natural expression of a body or
vehicle... like eating or sleeping with no deeper meaning, no narcissistic
supply for your ego. Anyway try reading some of Johns teachings and you
will see much the same truth that has been spoken by prophets and teachers
(including Krishnamurti) for eons. By the way I do agree with your
assesment about people getting attached to Guru's. It is just an
expression of the belief they still have about themselves as a weak finite
human with a story that defines them. But maybe they need to believe in
something outside themselves until they can find it inside. Maybe the Guru
is just mirroring their inner truth back to them. And they will need it
til they don't... I don't see how any harm is done.

Peace...

Thomas
D.

See
how faith damages the brain of people? Karl Marx said religion is the
opium of the masses. See how right he was? See
how Thomas justifies the shameful acts of infidelity of a crazy man by
saying “It is possible that sexual expression takes on a different
meaning to one who has let go of attachments and needs”? Isn’t
this brainwashing? Is there a substance more potent than faith that could
make a person stoop so low? This man is genuinely incapable to see that
his guru is a sick man and a pervert that has no control over his animal
instincts. He abuses the trust of his brainwashed followers and takes
advantage of their gullibility. The stupidity of this poor man is obvious
for anyone with a grain of brain, yet he is incapable to see his own
follies. Why? Because he is a believer!

I
posted this email here to show you how one can believe in the most absurd
things and still be convinced of having found the truth. Is it possible
that all of us who also “believe” and follow someone else for guidance
are as brainwashed as our poor friend Thomas?

If
you are a Muslim, recall that Muhammad too had sex with a score of women
much younger than himself. Bear in mind that he slept with Ayisha
the 9 year old daughter of his brainwashed follower Abu Bakr. Remember
that he killed people and took their properties as booty and distributed
their wives and children as slaves and sex slaves.

Just
as Thomas instead of being disgusted of indecencies and lustfulness of
John De Ruiter is apologetic of him and thinks this is something divine,
Muslims read the perversities of Muhammad and see no problem in that.

This
brainwashing is not reserved to the followers of De Ruiter and Muhammad.
The followers of all religions have their stupid beliefs that they are
unable to see. These people can see perfectly the errors of the believers
of other religions but are incapable of seeing their own.

Shouldn’t
we ask ourselves whether we are also as brainwashed as Thomas? Don’t we
believe in crazy ideas with no scientific or logical backing? Why is it
that we can see so clearly the follies of others and are so blind of our
own? I am not just talking to Muslims but to all those who believe. Those
who believe in any religion should ask themselves whether they too are
Thomases of their religion.

The following article is about John de
Ruiter. It gives a very good insight into the gullibility of human nature
and the willingness of some to be fooled. It is an excellent read for
those who may wonder why people followed Muhammad, or any other prophet
for that matter, with such resignation and blissful abandonment.